Tag Archives: animal neglect

It seems January is the time to make me & my colleagues squirm in our seats.

Last year during an in service day an assistant principal read this book about these elephants in a Tokyo zoo: Faithful Elephants. During World War II the government was afraid that if their city was bombed the animals would escape from the zoo & reek havoc around town. They ordered the caretakers at the zoo to euthanize most of the animals they deemed dangerous. The caretakers tried to inject the elephants, but the needles kept breaking.

They decided to starve them, well it goes on to say the elephants began doing tricks for their treats, because when they performed they usually got treats. I KNOW RIGHT!!!!!!! I was already going thru DTs & tearing up by the time she read the part about them having to euthanize, sigh…….. My father had just passed away two weeks prior. This was not a good time for this story. I gotta tell ya I don’t even remember what the workshop was about that day only the devastating story she read, ugh!!!

Then the very next session my curriculum person read a story about a puppy who felt ugly, he was a pug, and other dogs made fun of his pushed in nose. I KNOW RIGHT!!!!!! Yeah, then the principal read a bloody western scene in one of his favorite books, sigh……

It was not a good day that day.

Today, I was sitting in a professional development session with a very engaging presenter & she told us this story about learned helplessness. This scientist did an experiment where they brought 2 groups of dogs in. One group they shocked over & over again until they did a little trick that made the shocking stop, yeah, again, not a pleasant story. My muscles, before she even continued the story, clenched/tensed up & I couldn’t type anymore.

As we headed out this afternoon, I vowed to not do any work related stuff this evening, but to snuggle with my pups. If I do any work stuff it’ll only be on pinterest 🙂